


SICK AND TIRED (of ur shit)

by fascinationex



Series: transformers fics by fascinationex [5]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Sick Character, Silly, Starscream is an intolerable patient, tfw your own trine leaves you on read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 02:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20613143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex
Summary: Starscream contracts a mild virus. Nobody is sympathetic. This isvery unfair.





	SICK AND TIRED (of ur shit)

It wasn't a serious illness. Thundercracker had had it first, so he knew that much. Hook had inspected it, too, and said that it was a boring little coding virus, common as scrap metal, and that it did their antivirus good to encounter minor threats from time to time. 

The very moment Thundercracker heard Starscream's vents stall out, coughing softly in response to a stray line of code while he dozed in recharge on his own berth, he... found an urgent duty on the other side of the base. 

It wasn't a funny illness, either, so Skywarp didn't hang around to laugh. He was gone even faster: he gave a little twitch at the sound of Starscream's internals suddenly heating, a narrow stare when his vents rebooted -- and then he was gone, _zzp!_, without even the cover of a good excuse.

Starscream, meanwhile, woke up feeling like slag. One of the side effects of running a full virus scan was massively elevated core temperature as each system was examined and ruthlessly picked clean in rapid succession. He heated fast in the cool air of their underwater base, and the added heat sped up several of his internal chemical reactions, making his plating extremely sensitive and very uncomfortable.

[Scouting run], sent Thundercracker when he commed him, sounding strained. [Unlucky timing], he added, as though Starscream was going to believe for an astrosecond that Thundercracker wasn't avoiding him on purpose.

He might have, had he come online any further into the scan cycle. Antivirus tended to shut down unnecessary protocols to keep them safe from contamination. His tactical processor and higher critical thought protocols were likely to enter protective shutdown very shortly.

He scowled in confused discomfort at the ceiling. Thundercracker was being rude, and _also_ not bringing him extra coolant or paying attention to him. Someone could have been gently petting his aching wings, and they _weren't_. 

[You are a bad trine mate], he sent back, in a tone that he hoped indicated exactly how much trouble Thundercracker would be in when Starscream was well enough to think of something really vile to do to him. 

[I think I see an Autobot!] Thundercracker said. [Can't talk now! Bye!] 

And then the line went dead, abandoning Starscream to his sad, horrible, over-warm fate.

Skywarp did not even respond to his comm.

So Starscream pinged him again. Nothing.

He pinged him _again_.

This time he got an auto response: [Read at 22.76.9034.22 Galactic Standard Time ✔✔]

Starscream lay flat and scowled at the ceiling above him. It was battered but solid. It was only a little scorched from the last time he'd gotten a virus and tried to fire his null ray at Skywarp's head. Skywarp had teleported away, leaving it to scar the ceiling. It was very irresponsible of Skywarp, really, letting the place get trashed... 

Starscream levered himself up and stumbled sideways off the berth. Its height -- they had not been designed for seeker type jets -- helped him end up on his feet. He braced himself on it for a second, feeling dizzy and hot and just _terrible_ about the way all his hypersensitive sensors informed him of seventeen conflicting air currents all at once. 

Then he walked the five steps to Skywarp's berth and laboriously he heaved himself onto that one instead.

Exhausted by this tremendous effort, he sprawled dramatically across Skywarp's berth and quietly sizzled. At some point soon, the heat rising in his core would make his coolant steam, and, in Earth's disgusting atmosphere, there would be a lot of sick-smelling condensation leaking from between his hot plates. 

He might as well get it all over Skywarp's berth instead of his own.

[You're an idiot], he told Skywarp, very cleverly, and then several parts of his processor slowed right down as scans of them commenced. He dozed unhappily. He _should_ have been able to stay with his trine, who _should_ have been here to take care of him... but since they were all _abandoners and traitors_, he was left smoking softly, leaking a little coolant around the edges, and cuddling his null ray while he dozed fitfully. 

The berthroom door swooshed open later that cycle with a more dramatic _fwoosh_ than an automatic door should really have been capable of. Starscream jerked out of his restless sleep, wings twitching and turbines whirring unhappily. The room was dim and slightly humid now, and smelled like hot metal.

For half a second Starscream's confused processor thought it was Thundercracker, having grown a conscience and come back to tend to him. Then he realised that the silhouette thrown into the room, streamed across him by the lights outside, was too big and bulky by far.

"Starscream, you're joors late for your shift, you treacherous pile of --" 

There was a sudden silence. Megatron's big shadow shifted, vents opening and closing, sensors analysing the air in the berth room. 

"You're sick?" 

"No," said Starscream firmly. He peered at the null ray in his arms and then, thoughtfully, back at Megatron. Some association fired dimly in his processor and it insisted that Megatron and the null ray should be related somehow. He cuddled it a little closer.

His frame took the opportunity to give another soft, crackling sizzle.

"Are you overheating?" Megatron demanded. 

"Your _head's_ overheating." 

Megatron was not impressed by this slurred rejoinder.

"You're overheating. Get up. I will not tolerate the second in command of my army _overheating_ because you were too _dim-witted_ to get your own coolant -- or even to comm the medic." 

"That's why I have a _trine_," Starscream complained. He did not move.

"And where is your trine now?" Megatron sneered.

"They're a very bad trine," he whined.

"Starscream," sighed Megatron, sounding briefly much more genuine -- and more tired. "Get up."

He took one step forward. Starscream clutched his null ray more firmly, but not like a gun -- like a bat, or a crowbar, curled like a club in his fist.

"No," he insisted.

"You're being absurd."

In one hand, Megatron grabbed his null ray and shoved it aside. In the other, he took Starscream by the arm and hauled him, effortlessly, right off the berth. 

"You're going to wash that gunk off," he commanded imperiously, giving Starscream's plating a disdainful look. "And then you're going to take some coolant--"

He didn't want any of that! ...and, most importantly, he didn't want Megatron _telling him what to do!_

"No," he insisted, making himself dead weight, refusing to even so much as lift his wings. They sagged mournfully, and Megatron had to shove the null ray into subspace and use both hands to keep him upright. 

Megatron made a noise like something in _him_ was overheating, too.

Starscream began to eye him suspiciously but he got distracted midway by the ugly slick stains he'd left on Skywarp's berth. That was a lot of contaminated coolant to have gotten on the berth...

Ha. Served Skywarp right.

Megatron was pulling on him. He didn't like that. His plating was sensitive and while he didn't always hate Megatron's big, clumsy hands getting all over him, right now they kind of hurt. He squirmed. 

"No," he repeated, flailing one wing until it smacked Megatron in his too-small helm.

"Ha!" he crowed, although it was more by luck than by design. "I have defeated-- hhhk!"

"_Starscream,_" Megatron snapped, and shook him again, rattling him from his wings to his toes.

Nooo. That felt bad.

Without appreciable effort, Megatron heaved him up and over one shoulder. 

That wasn't so bad: Starscream didn't have to support any of his own pieces like this. And Megatron was nice and cool without being too cold -- not icy like the air or the floor. He ...dangled.

He also kind of liked being picked up so easily. Megatron's back was such a nice, broad, powerful one. A beautiful target. He scratched it, long and hard with his claws.

Roughly, Megatron smacked his thigh. That _hurt_.

"Ow," said Starscream sadly. Then: "You have to be _nice_ to me," he complained, feeling all his energon rush to his helm as Megatron began to walk them towards the wash racks. Yes... there was a lot of energon travelling in directions he wasn't sure it was meant to go in, inside his warm frame. He wondered what Megatron would say if he just purged right down his back. Sometimes Megatron seemed as thick as Skywarp. "I am _sick."_

Motormaster was standing very still in the opening of a side corridor as Megatron strolled past. His optics were fixed on them but his frame seemed deliberately frozen. Starscream wondered if he knew that standing still didn't actually make him invisible to real people the way it did to some local organics. The Stunticons... could be kind of stupid. _Like Megatron._

"You're going to be worse than merely sick in a moment, Starscream, for I tire of this _foolinshness_," Megatron warned in a dire and dark voice.

__

He did not, however, drop him.

His heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. Starscream pressed his hot face to the cool metal of Megatron's back, sighed, and allowed himself to be carried. __

He saved purging on him for when they got to the wash racks.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who follows me on social media has seen me whining about being sick for the past several days.
> 
> I asked for a prompt to write something short and silly with which to distract myself, and AO3 user [Sylvaine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvaine) said, "500 words of Starscream whinging about being sick and Megatron being unsympathetic". This is... sort of that. They also came up with this title for me.


End file.
